First, Alsace - six nights, five full days - and then Burgundy for five nights, four full days. We cycled four of the days in Alsace and three in Burgundy, where the rides were shorter, but in less than ideal weather.
Strasbourg. Beautiful buildings, churches, shops, restaurants, schools and at least one university set on the Grand Ile (island) and surrounding riverbanks. Hundreds of half-timbered buildings that must be 300 to 500 years old, classic 19th century French architecture and gothic churches including the immense Notre Dame de Strasbourg.
We learned a new word here: chantier. This word was on informational signage inside Notre Dame de Strasbourg, tracing the cathedral’s history over the millennium, though we did not understand it. Later, we talked to a woman at Eglise St. Pierre Le Jeune who gave us the English translations: construction site, or work in progress. The Cathedral and the city both reflect such evolution. Notre Dame de Strasbourg bears signs of rebuilding, from early structural additions and later flying buttresses that allowed further expansion to a 19th C. astronomical clock and a 21st C. stained/painted glass window of Jesus - whose face is composed of images of 150 anonymous individual faces. In this window, Jesus is blessing the church to commemorate 1000 years since construction began. Notre Dame and other churches have been Catholic, Protestant, one then the other (and sometimes back), and even both at the same time. C’est formidable!
The streets in the Petite France district were filled with tourists, but a park area there was quiet and the canals and half timbered buildings were a delight.
We dined well. One beautiful, typically French meal at La Hache and one typically Alsatian meal at St. Sepulcre, which was recommended by the woman who had defined chantier. We enjoyed conversations about travel, work and health care with a younger couple from Berlin at the Alsatian restaurant between courses. No problem making same day reservations for dinner at each.
Alsace - somewhat through the back door - cycling from Strasbourg to (and around) Colmar. Impressions, rather than pages of detail … but with some details, too.
The Route des Vins at the foot of the Vosges mountains is lovely. The vineyards are gorgeous and, as the weather improved from cloudy and blustery to sunny and warm, the days were pretty great. The grape harvest was in full swing. We stayed in Obernai and Ribeauvillé and spent two nights in Colmar. We stopped in 11 other towns along the way - to look at half-timbered buildings and churches, for lunches at boulangeries, to visit a sorcerer’s garden, to rest and enjoy views, to stop at a couple of castles (one ruined and one restored) and for a pre-arranged wine tasting. Two decades ago, would it have been so overly cute? With so many shops, cycle tours and tourists? It is harder to find the proverbial back door in popularized areas, today. One last general comment, 20th and 21st C. growth around Alsatian towns is sometimes done nicely, but not always. And the growing towns are neither as compact, nor defined by the sharp edge between town and farm or forest lands, that was so noteworthy in Germany.
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